He Blocked His Ex After She Asked for Free Website Work Post-Breakup

Philip, 26, and Tooni, 24, met at a mutual friend’s birthday party in December 2024. They were paired together for the night’s games, and Philip felt an immediate connection. When he asked for her number afterward, she gave it to him and told him to text her. By February 2025, they were officially dating.

In this installment of Sunken Ships, a Zikoko series that explores how and why relationships end, Philip shares how their relationship unraveled, the post-breakup request that led him to block her number, and how the experience has shaped his view of love.

A Promising Start

The early months were good. Tooni would cook during her meal prep and send food to Philip. She made cute videos of them together and sent them to him at work to lift his mood. Philip describes her as a great listener and a hard worker, and he supported her ambitions. When she asked him to help build a website for her shoe retail business, he was happy to do it.

Philip says there weren’t parts of the relationship that felt imperfect early on. Instead, problems seemed to appear all at once. “We went from being two people in love to constantly arguing over little things,” he recalls.

When Living Arrangements Changed

In April, Tooni had to move due to issues with her previous roommate. She moved in with old friends, and Philip believes living with them changed her. She began picking fights and comparing their relationship to her friends’. She complained that Philip didn’t spend enough time with her and that he couldn’t afford some of the expensive experiences she wanted, such as high-end dinner dates.

Philip tried to make more time for her, but with a nine-to-five job, his free time was limited. He also promised to be more intentional about taking her on a proper date at least once every quarter.

At first, it seemed to help. A few weeks later, though, they were back to the same arguments. Philip was under a lot of pressure at work and admits he wasn’t always as patient as he could have been. He also felt Tooni cared a lot about how their relationship looked to other people, while he didn’t. As long as they were happy, he didn’t care what anyone thought. But it mattered to her that people saw them in a particular way. Philip didn’t like it, but he was willing to compromise if it would help them stay together.

The Breakup

Everything changed in November 2025. Tooni finished her service year, and her roommates took her out with some other friends to celebrate. Philip doesn’t have all the details, but he suspects she met someone else that night. After the outing, she became cold and hard to reach. They went from fighting a few times a month to barely speaking.

Worried they were drifting apart, Philip tried even harder to get her to engage. But in early December, she broke up with him. She said they didn’t have enough shared ambition and that she wanted someone more driven. Apparently, she didn’t think Philip was driven enough for her.

Philip says the breakup hurt because he genuinely enjoyed the relationship when things were good. He missed the connection they had, but he tried to move on quickly. Checking her social media helped, strangely enough. She seemed happy and was already posting with a new man. What surprised him was how much it hurt to see her post him more than she ever posted Philip when they were together. Eventually, he had to stop thinking about it and move on.

The Post-Breakup Request

About two weeks after the breakup, Tooni reached out. Philip thought she wanted to see how he was doing or explain why she moved on so quickly. Instead, she asked if he’d be willing to update and maintain her shoe website for free in the future, for “old times’ sake.”

Philip was so annoyed that he hung up and blocked her number. He says he wouldn’t have minded if she had asked for a discount or some other arrangement. But after breaking up with him, she still expected him to maintain her website for free. It felt like she was trying to use the soft spot he still had for her to get unpaid work from him.

Moving Forward

Philip has no interest in getting back together. Losing her hurt a lot at first, but he thinks enough time has passed. Maybe, he says, the truth is that they weren’t right for each other. He knows that right now, he wants something different in his next partner.

As for how the experience has affected his view of romantic relationships, Philip says it hasn’t. He sees it as one of those things you experience on the streets. He still believes in love, and while it may take a while, he’ll find his better half eventually.